First Responders Spending More On Overdose Reversal Drug

Battalion Chief Mark St. Laurent, seen here at the Franklin Square firehouse in Washington, D.C., says sometimes multiple doses of naloxone are needed to stop an overdose.

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Originally published on August 8, 2017 5:24 pm

In Prince George's County, Md., every first responder carries naloxone, the drug that can reverse an opioid overdose.

"We carry it in our first-in bags," says Bryan Spies, the county's battalion chief in charge of emergency services. "So whenever we arrive at a patient's side, it's in the bag, along with things like glucose, aspirin and oxygen."

The first responders in Prince George's County are pulling the drug out of the bag more than ever. Last year they administered 877 doses to people who had overdosed. This year, they're on track to administer 1,230 doses, Spies says. That averages out to more than three doses a day in just one county.

In Washington, D.C., it's the same story.

"Depending on the strength [of the opioid], you may see that we'd use two of these," says Battalion Chief Mark St. Laurent, holding up a 2-milligram vial of naloxone.

Opioid addiction has reached crisis levels across the country. Overdose deaths from prescription painkillers and heroin totaled about 33,000 in 2015, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Naloxone reverses the progress of an overdose and revives the victim so they start breathing again. It's been around since the 1960s but has become so ubiquitous in the emergency response arena in recent years that even the bomb squad in Prince George's County carries it — to safeguard their bomb-sniffing dogs.

"Obviously, they're sniffing a lot of things in a lot of different places," Spies says. "So if they come across white powder or any type of the drug, the bomb team does have the naloxone readily available to give to the canines."

Prince George's County will spend about $45,000 of its $600,000 equipment budget this year on naloxone. Spies says the price of the drug had been rising but has leveled off in recent years.

The Washington, D.C., fire department confirms this. The city paid about $6 for a prefilled syringe of naloxone in 2010, says spokesman Vito Maggiolo. This year, that same syringe runs about $30. Maggiolo says the fire department spent about $170,000 on naloxone in the last 10 months.

That worries Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who last week sent letters to four pharmaceutical companies that make naloxone, asking them to provide details about the discount programs they offer to emergency management and public health agencies. It's part of an ongoing inquiry she launched last year with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, into rising drug prices.

"The rise in costs associated with acquiring naloxone has caused significant accessibility issues for those on the front lines of this epidemic," she wrote in the letters. The letters were following up on an earlier request about naloxone costs, in which the companies responded by saying they had donated doses and offered discounts on naloxone to first responders.

The prices of some brands of naloxone have risen in recent years, according to an analysis by the investment research firm SSR Health for NPR. The price of a vial of generic naloxone made by the company Amphastar rose from about $4 in 2009 to about $16 this year, according to SSR.

McCaskill was particularly concerned about a naloxone auto-injector called Evzio, made by Kaleo Pharmaceuticals, whose price rose from $288 per dose when it hit the market in 2014 to more than $2,000 this year. McCaskill sent the company a separate letter asking it to justify its price in February.

Kaleo CEO Spencer Williamson said in a statement that no customers actually pay that much because of all the discounts and rebates the company offers.

The company says it has donated more than 250,000 of the devices to nonprofit groups, fire departments and public health agencies. It says 3,600 lives have been saved by those donated devices.

Not all prices are rising. Narcan is probably the best-known brand of naloxone. It's made by Adapt Pharma and comes in a nasal spray. The list price has been $125 since it went on sale in 2015, according to the company and SSR. Company spokesman Thomas Duddy says Adapt sells Narcan to emergency responders and other public agencies for $75 for a two-pack.

"You get a sense of the premium being charged for the unique delivery mechanism," says Richard Evans, general manager at SSR. But Evans says the higher prices for those specialty products have also driven up the price of generic naloxone.

Last week, President Trump's opioid commission, chaired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, issued a report that included a recommendation to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency. Doing so would give the Department of Health and Human Services the power to negotiate lower prices for naloxone, the report said.

Today, HHS Secretary Tom Price said the administration believes they already have the resources and focus they need to tackle the problem without needing an emergency declaration, but he did add that "all things are on the table for the president."

The report also asked the president to require every law enforcement officer in the country to carry naloxone.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

With the opioid crisis, police, firefighters and paramedics are responding to more overdoses than ever. They often take along naloxone, which can save lives. But the rising cost of the drug is taking a toll on emergency response programs. NPR's Alison Kodjak reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF FIRETRUCK HORN)

ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: We're at the Franklin Square firehouse in downtown Washington, D.C. Two trucks just returned from a call and are backing into the station.

(SOUNDBITE OF FIRETRUCKS BACKING UP)

KODJAK: Battalion Chief Mark St. Laurent pulls out the equipment bag the EMT use when they respond to a medical emergency.

MARK ST. LAURENT: So this is the bag that was just utilized at 14th and Constitution to engage to save a man's life who was in respiratory arrest. So this is the truck's bag. And there's their Narcan locked and ready to go.

KODJAK: Narcan - it's the most common brand name of a drug called naloxone that firefighters and EMTs use to save the lives of people who overdosed on heroin or prescription opioids. In the bag that St. Laurent just opened, there's a vial of naloxone and a syringe right on top.

ST. LAURENT: We're using it pretty commonly, probably on a daily basis. Rough estimate - somewhere between 12 to 18 times a day we'll get utilizations of it.

KODJAK: Naloxone is sort of a miracle drug. It can literally breathe life back into someone who has stopped breathing because of an overdose. It doesn't always work, of course. And St. Laurent says as street drugs have become stronger, emergency responders often need more than the standard 2-milligram dose.

ST. LAURENT: A couple of times where I'm looking at 6, 8 milligrams of - sometimes 10 milligrams to get them to breathe.

KODJAK: Naloxone has been around for decades. But in the last few years, as opioid overdoses have skyrocketed, so has its price. The D.C. Fire Department paid $6 for a dose in 2010. This year, that same vial cost $30. The city spent $170,000 on naloxone in the last 10 months.

Next door in Prince George's County, Md., the fire department expects the number of doses it uses to rise 40 percent this year to 1,200. Bryan Spies, the county's battalion chief in charge of emergency services, says all emergency responders keep naloxone at hand.

BRYAN SPIES: We carry it in our first-in bags. Whenever we arrive at a patient's side, it's in the bag, along with things like glucose, aspirin, oxygen.

KODJAK: Even the bomb team carries it.

SPIES: For the bomb dogs because obviously they're sniffing a lot of things in a lot of different places.

KODJAK: The price increase has been driven by new, easy-to-use forms of naloxone. One automatically injects the drug. Another is a nasal spray. They cost more because of the complicated delivery devices, says Richard Evans of SSR Health, an investment research firm.

RICHARD EVANS: Yeah. In the case of naloxone, the generic drug substance is really cheap. You can get a dose of naloxone for as cheap as $3.43.

KODJAK: But that's not in a form that can be used by emergency responders. The generic naloxone used in D.C. and Prince George's County are far pricier. The rising costs have caught the attention of Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill. Last week, she sent letters to four companies that make naloxone, looking for details on prices and discount programs. She's particularly concerned about the Evzio auto injector whose list price is more than $2,000 a dose. That price baffles Richard Evans as well.

EVANS: Look, I'll tell you, a quarter century in the business and I'm scratching my head to guess what their reference point was for a $2,000 list price. I really have no idea.

KODJAK: Kaleo Pharma, which makes Evzio, says nobody pays the list price because they offer discounts and rebates. But even with the rising prices, demand for naloxone keeps increasing. Last week, the president opioid commission recommended all police officers carry the drug, and that's a formula for even greater price hikes in the future. Alison Kodjak, NPR News, Washington.